On January 31, staff at WJLA gathered around a pair of sheet cakes for a sendoff to a pair of Washington TV heavyweights: Maureen Bunyan, a 44-year veteran of local airwaves who in 1978 became one of the first female African-American anchors in the US, and Bruce DePuyt, who for 14 years hosted NewsTalk, the rare public-affairs show that was actually fun to watch.
The cakes were, by this point, a familiar ritual. Anchors Leon Harris and Gordon Peterson, sports anchors Alex Parker and Tim Brant, and entertainment-reporter legend Arch Campbell are among those who have also exited over the past three years.
At another station—or another time—this type of turnover might suggest a crisis. In the golden age of local TV news, anchors were central to a station’s identity. “The thing about Washington, DC, is it takes years for an on-the-air talent to earn name recognition,” says Campbell. That connection with the audience is built not just on the air but through hundreds of rubber-chicken dinners, stints emceeing community events, and, more recently, building followings on social media. Anchors influence newsroom culture and provide goodwill that keeps bringing viewers back, says Al Tompkins, who teaches broadcast journalism at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank (where I used to work).
So why would WJLA let more than a century’s worth of name recognition walk out the door? Or, stranger still, why would it nudge them?
In the case of Channel 7, the on-air changes are part of a bigger behind-the-scenes transition. In 2014, longtime owner Allbritton Communications—whose patriarch bequeathed the station (formerly WMAL) his own initials, JLA—sold its TV business to Sinclair Broadcast Group. Headquartered in suburban Baltimore, the firm has grown rapidly by snapping up small groups such as the one WJLA was part of.
